It has been a long term. Actually, it’s been several weeks shorter than the other two but the volume of work we’ve done is probably more. I realised that I’d better speed up doing the work to finish the text books. Saying that, we’ve not finished the maths one – I’ve skipped the measurement chapter as most of that was about imperial measurement (and I don’t have the first idea what a ‘quart’ is anyway!). This amount of work is the reason I’ve not sent an update for a while.
The class have been very naughty this term. I think it’s because it is warmer and the end is in sight. Also, no doubt, my patience with them has been waning as their naughtiness persisted.
The first week of the term they were at their worst ever I think. One girl shouted back at me when I told her to stop turning round. Another boy seemed intent on leading every other boy in the class astray into his world of mischief. Two of the girls in the class began a campaign of bullying on a very sweet and simple little boy in the class. The class’ rampage of ‘spring fever’ was only kerbed when the head teacher came in and gave them a verbal whipping.
Two weeks later that mischievous boy (whom I’m giving the false name of Rawad) organised the class to do something very bad. I came to the class, and saw that all the red and yellow behaviour cards were gone. A day or two later, I saw them all scattered on the track at the bottom the school. It turned out that Rawad had ordered the rest of the class to take some and throw them so that I couldn’t put one of these cards on their chart. Half the class were punished with litter picking and a loss of breaktimes for a few days.
About 3 weeks ago I discovered half my class sharing a plastic cup of something at breaktime. On further inspection, it turned out to be whisky. It was neat by the smell of it. The caretakers son had snuck into his house and brought a cup full out for the naughtier children in the class to share. The following lesson, the caretakers son and a girl had to leave the class to vomit. This incident followed another similar incident where someone’s mother has spiked her son’s water bottle with whisky to help his hayfever – this particular boy has been on another planet since Easter because of his antihistamines, this must have been adding to it.
I have achieved 2 things this term that I’m very pleased with. Firstly, I’ve learned how to do long division. I could never do it in school very well, and it was on the maths course for this term. So I sat down and worked it out for myself. The second thing is that I’ve now learned all of the letters in the Arabic alphabet and can read and write words in Arabic too. This has proven very useful: I can intercept notes the children pass around and see what they’re writing. I know a few swear words in Arabic and can recognise them when the kids write them. The most common insult the children use is the word Hmaron (this simply means donkey). Although it’s only a silly jokey insult in English, it’s worthy of punishment here.
To say goodbye to the class, I purchased them all a Children’s Bible (which I got for a bargainous £1.80 each). A real Bible would be far too hard for them seeing as English is a second language. Most cheap Arabic Bibles are in the Smith Van Dyke version which is in very old fashioned language. These children’s Bibles are at the correct level of English for them. They have lovely pictures too so the children will take interest in reading about the different events.
In Bible lessons this term, we’ve discussed the Ten Commandments. These have been quite good lessons and I think the class learnt a lot. They were left in no doubt that they’ve broken most of the rules and haven’t met God’s standard. There were many opportunities to tell them about how Jesus has taken the punishment for their actions.
We’ve also had several visitors to the school this term. A team of music students from a Bristol college came and did workshops for all the classes culminating in a concert for the parents at the end of the week. The kids enjoyed it and the parents enjoyed the concert (although they chatted to each other the whole of the way through it – this is an aspect of Lebanese culture which you just can’t get used to). It was such hard work for the class teachers as the kids were mental all week.
The team of musicians were not true Christians and the neighbours of the school noticed this immediately without being told. They were not culturally observant with their clothing – the females wore some very revealing clothing. Two of them were a couple and held hands around the village and kissed each other – this is something that married couples don’t even do here. They also drunk vast quantities of alcohol and smoked like a bonfire. This was very embarrassing for us at the time. It’s taken us a long time to get the locals to see that we’re not like the loose people they stereotype as westerners from the American TV shows. But I think them seeing the contrast has been actually quite beneficial to our witness.
It’s exam time at the moment in school and then we finish for good at 1pm on Monday. As there’s no work for another term to begin, the children have been given study leave to work at home. So far the exam grades have been slightly lower than average. The antihistamine boy is failing most of his (very unusually). The work is a tad harder than before as the maths, English and Science courses get progressively harder as they go on.
I think they’ve been revising hard at home though as their class work grades must have been a wakeup call – they all paid the price for being naughty this term by the fact that their classwork grades were up to 20% lower than last time! That’ll teach them.
I shall be returning to the UK in a few weeks time. This is actually something I’m quite nervous about. Probably as much as when I came to Lebanon in the first place.
I’ve had to totally adjust the way I act and talk to people and I’ll have to revert to the customs of the UK again. I’ll have so much choice of food when I visit a shop. I’ll have to pick up friendships with people I’ve not physically spoken to or seen for 10 months. I left my town, church and surroundings and in my mind it seems that everything in the UK has paused and will start to replay again when the plane lands. However, babies I know will be much bigger and not know who I am, the town will have changed, my house will, pets have died, church will be doing things differently…
Coming back from a term at uni was bad enough in this respect and makes you feel like an alien or an impostor in your own home town. So, to all the people I will see and speak to when I go back to the UK in July, please bear this in mind! Forgive me if you think I’m acting oddly or unfriendly or withdrawn – I won’t mean it! See you soon.
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